Stephen King’s First Publisher Dies

Elaine Koster, a publisher and literary agent who gave a second chance to an obscure horror writer named Stephen King and took on an unknown Khaled Hosseini and “The Kite Runner,” has died. Hosseini’s publisher, Penguin Group (USA), says Koster died Tuesday at age 69 at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York. The cause of death was not immediately available. As publisher of the New American Library in the 1970s, Kosterpaid a then-enormous $400,000 for the rights to King’s “Carrie”and was later credited with helping to make a blockbuster out ofErica Jong’s “Fear of Flying.” As an agent, she was quickly drawnto Hosseini’s manuscript for “The Kite Runner.” Thanks to word ofmouth, millions of copies of the book have been sold. (AP)